Video streaming is one of the most burdening applications on networks. The high data rate necessary for video, and in particular, high definition video can dominate resources used for many other types of data transfers transacted on the network. In a WLAN, access points can service data transfers for many wireless stations connecting to a wired backbone.
Video files can be prohibitively burdensome if the entire file is downloaded altogether. HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) adaptive streaming provides a technique for progressive downloading of chunks, or portions, of the video file that can be played back at a client without having the entire file present. In more detail, a video can be divided into 10 chunks, each having about 10% of the total video file. Once a first chunk has been downloaded to the client, it fills the buffer with 8 seconds of playback time, for instance. During those 8 seconds, the next chunk can be downloaded and so on.
However, a download rate for progressive downloading can be aggressive and without consideration for an actual download rate necessary for an encoding rate by a streaming server. For example, a large playback device such as web-enabled television may have a fast download rate assigned due to its potential playback resolution. The selected video file, on the other hand, may have a relatively low resolution that is encoded for streaming at a bit rate much lower than assumed.
One technique to address this issue is to download customized software to a station. But reconfiguration of stations running on a station is not always desirable. For instance, guests connecting to a public hot spot for only one time would be burdened with the process of downloading and installing a client. Furthermore, many computer users are weary about malicious applications downloaded from the Internet.
What is needed is a robust technique to data plane provisioning of network resources more efficiently by keeping a download rate proportional to an encoding rate.